not the best day

Yesterday I was thinking about how my holiday weekend really did feel long. It was full of friends and fun and I wished that it could have just kept going. Turns out that I didn't have to go to work today after all! All I had to do was ride my bike to work and once I was a block away, get my front tire stuck in the new South Lake Union trolley tracks, fly over my handle bars and knock my front teeth out! Easy.

I spent the day in dentist and oral surgeon's offices getting a lot of wide eyes and "Oh..honey..."'s. At first I didn't think I was that bad off but began to realize by the looks of the peoples' faces who began to surround me, that I was not okay. The construction workers, the passerbys, my coworkers, the firemen. They were all more reflective than a mirror about how I looked.

I was going about 10mph, slowing down as I approached my office. I have to cross the trolley tracks to get to my office from the road. I hopped my tire over the first track and apparently didn't quite get it over the second one. My tire fit perfectly into the track and acted like a really effective brake. I headed over, my hands still clutching the handlebars, my feet in the clips. I landed on my face. My face, and the visor of my helmet, which saved me from a thoroughly broken nose or worse. I got up, with my hand to my mouth and immediately hoped that I hadn't lost my teeth. I had. Half of them at least. One was in my lip and the other one I found later in the place where I spit it out. Not sure if one of them went all the way through my lip or just part of the way. I made a mess of the sidewalk. The firemen came and looked me over. I turned down an ambulance ride to the hospital. What could they really do for me and how much was that going to cost me? Why did this have to happen 3 days before my new health insurance started?

The dentist thinks my jaw may be broken. I hope it isn't. That means surgery. I will be getting two new teeth as soon as my jaw is stabilized. I have some good pain meds and have been icing my face all day. Most of my family turned up at the oral surgeon's office, which really helped. I was starting to get pretty freaked out and their presence was like a tranquilizer. My sister and roommates are making me smoothies and getting me fresh ice. I'll be okay, they tell me. I'm not sure about that yet, but we'll see. Having my teeth knocked out has always been one of my worst fears, and look at me now. Conquered that one. Or did it conquer me? I should know once those shiny new crowns are in there and I don't look like little Sally-Sue from the back woods anymore.

vocational options and opportunities

Today I was playing my game "Where were you at this time last year?", a game I started playing a while ago to ease the weirdness of being back and disconnected from my dream trip. I have to look in my second trip journal for the second half of the trip to find May 28. What I found was some quality introspection that I remember writing on the train on the way from Grenoble, France to Barcelona, Spain. I must have been facing the reality that the endless trip was actually starting to wane. Within a drivel of personal reflection, I made a list called 'Every job I have EVER considered.' I included everything I have seriously considered from the time I realized that people have to be something when they grow up. Here's the list:

archaeologist (first occupation I was interested in due to King Tut flip book found in school library)
greenhouse owner
judge
forest ranger
surgeon
historian
train engineer (still a top choice in my eyes)
civil engineer
cafe owner
farmer
landscape architect
grocery store owner
soil scientist
hydrologist
surf instructor
hiking guide/hiking hostel (yes, I think this would really work out well)
coffee shop owner
writer (all you have to do to be a writer is write...)
illustrator
life coach/organizer
wedding coordinator
caterer
children's nature guide
professor
garden writer
car restorer
REI backpack sales
travel writer
adventure resort owner
surf shop
baker
graphic designer
industrial designer
florist
pizza shop/pub
juice hut
non-profit urban designer
accountant
track coach
CAD teacher for high school (in my future, seriously. imagine the summer vacations)
architect
recycling program director
compost advocate (must create this job first)
arborist
gardening teacher

That pretty much covers it. I am still interested in most of these things with the exception of wedding coordinator and car restorer. I hope I can fit at least a few of these into this lifetime. There are just too many good things a person can spend their time doing. Note the small number of office jobs... I think I missed something back in high school career counseling when they told me I should work outside.

Here's a dreamy photo from a hike I took this long weekend.

mr. hart

This past weekend was a rockstar-style series of events at La Casa de La Trifecta. My good friend George came to visit from Ipswich, England. You may remember my own visit over there last June. I first met George in Ethiopia on my Deputation trip in 2003. He had been working at the Mekele youth center for several months and was on his way home. My team was just getting started. We hit it off right away over Scrabble and table tennis and have kept in touch ever since.

I wanted to show George my home and let my pride overflow and evolve into his own appreciation for the Emerald city and the Evergreen State. We began at a lovely party in Tacoma with some of my friends Friday night after George arrived at the airport.

Saturday morning Melissa, George and I pulled ourselves together and packed up the car for a little campout at Deception Pass State Park. My family joined us in the morning for a little Mother’s Day scramble around the beaches and a couple rounds of the family throwing-rocks-at-driftwood game. It was sunny and beautiful and we all had a great time.

Monday I made use of some of my overtime hours and took the day off to spend with George. We hit up mini-golf, the Ballard Locks, Golden Gardens and finally the Hopvine for Scrabble with Claire, Melissa and fellow deputee, Alexander. I laughed pretty much all day, which is what it is like to spend time with George. Seattle was on its best behavior and we both got a little sunburned. Tuesday I sent George into the city on his own before taking him back to the airport in the evening.

While I enjoy his visits, emails and occasional parcels very much, it’s a sad time when we must part ways. How can I enjoy a friend so much that I really haven’t spent all that much time with (14 days)? It doesn’t make sense. I believe Anne Shirley from Green Gables called them kindred spirits. There are people in your life that you can learn to like and love, and those that you can’t help but to do so. We can all be thankful for those people in our lives and the easy way our relationships exist with them.

Cheers, George!

it's official now, about summer

Sometimes the only way to get all the office off of my skin is to get really dirty. Until yesterday, I had not been up to the mountains since mid-February. No wonder I have been feeling so restless and ornery. Saturday, Melissa and I rolled out of our beds, had a leisurely morning, then loaded up Judy and drove to Cle Elum. We met Kristen and DJ at a rustic campground next to the Teanaway River, middle fork. I was jumping inside because I was so excited to make a fire, walk in the woods and sleep in my tent (which hasn't happened for a year and a half). The ephemerals were blooming, the trees leafing out, and across the river from our campsite was a wonderful stand of yellow and white Aspen trees against a backdrop of dark green conifers.

Our conversations were fun, the river sounded great and I was so excited to feel the chilly air on my face and the warmth of my sleeping bag, I almost forgot to sleep. I woke up to the sun, unzipped the back door and admired the water, trees and sky from my pillow and my cozy down bed. We ate, then decided to go for a drive. We headed farther upstream and found a bunch of beautiful campgrounds and snowy vistas. We also found the one patch of deeply rutted snow left on the roadway and got completely high centered and stuck on it.

We were driving in Kristen and DJ's twin Subaru Loyale (which they purchased after my loyale experiment went SO well). DJ instructed us to start digging out the snow from under the car with sticks, which we all performed half-heartedly knowing that it may take days to accomplish the task. I was cracking up the entire time because the road was totally dry everywhere else except this Subaru-sized patch that we landed in. We tried putting sticks under the tires, pushing forward and pushing back. Reverse, 4WD, 1st gear...nothing worked.

Our spirits had not even begun to fall when our rescue arrived. A LARGE red truck with a plate that read BGBEAR2 came around the corner and stopped in front of us. I spotted the winch on the front of the beastly rig and realized that not only was he going to make our day, but we were going to make his. After a few minutes of set-up, BGBEAR2 pulled and the little Loyale bounced out of the icy snow. It was only then that I realized how stuck the car really was. Mr. Truck was grinning ear to ear having had the opportunity to use his special truck toy and we zipped along on our way, laughing. Who gets stuck in the snow in May anyway?

overtime

When I tell people that I am a landscape architect, most of the time they ask me if I get to spend a lot of time outside. They are surprised (as I still often am) that I get out of the office about half-yearly. The landscape that I see most looks like this picture.

During these dark times of working 9 to 9, I realize how much I would rather be outside. For now, I have to keep my head down and focus on the comp time that I am earning and that fine day when I cash in and go to the ocean instead of the office.